Nina steals Dylan’s blog

 

lilacsOriginally uploaded by nina.

Because I’m ignoring the blog. Here are some pretty lilacs in our yard - this is our best year ever for them. I read Dylan’s latest story “the Car Enthusiast” last night and it is so good! He has a real future with this. What else - Dylan tried on my motorcycle jacket and he can play the bad boy look with the best of them - what a fox, I actually had a visceral reaction to it. Plus I ordered my bike! A new Ducati 695 - go over the the permanent links to see the exact picture - it’ll be the closest I come to it for awhile until the real thing finally arrives.

dinner

Originally uploaded by nina.

I’m cooking, quick everyone sign liability waivers.

Squirrel

Originally uploaded by Sam Driscoll.

OK, I discovered how loud I really can scream when a squirrel jumped out at me and Jack when we opened the door to the stairwell yesterday. Then it ran upstairs and hid behind the fridge and we ran into a corner of the basement. Then Dylan and his dad created a path of boxes and got it to run back downstairs, but it went in the basement not out the open door.

Meanwhile the guy who runs the squirrel resort is busy capturing others on the roof in prep for closing up the various warrens, which now must offer house egress.

And all this is going to cost as much as 2-3 pairs of Pradas!! Oh well, I bought some Pradas anyways on Saturday morning - you know, I really NEEDED them.

hey I nabbed this guy’s photo off Flickr - thanks unknown guy.

View from top of the Palatine Hill

Originally uploaded by nina.

Oh man I would like to live here, in one of these rooftop apartments in Rome. This was probably one of the best trips we’ve ever taken. The 2nd best was to Brazil in 1999. But we didn’t have time to properly plan that and weren’t as thrilled with some of the hotels the agency put us into.

Dylan is finishing his next story, called “The Car Enthusiast.” I haven’t read it yet, but have heard a lot about it. It sounds very funny, and I have also heard laughter drifting through the walls while he’s been writing it two rooms down, so I think that’s a good sign.

I have been busy as a bee at work, which is a pretty unbroken pattern for the last few months. But more importantly, I think I have decided upon the motorcycle purchase. I’ve been looking at a few used Ducati’s, but think I am going to pre-order one of the new Ducati Monster 695’s, the one in gloss black with a red frame. yuuuummmmy. Anyways, I want to thank the fine folks at Manley Cycle, Minneapolis motorcycle repair and service maestros, who have been incredibly nice and helpful. They looked at some used bikes for me - for free! - and gave very good advice and opinions.

double dog dare

Originally uploaded by nina.

 1) Dylan is standing on his tip-toes.
2) What is going on with his hand up the back of my shirt?

We saw the movie Friends with Money the other night and liked it, although perhaps not quite as much as her earlier movies, which we liked a lot. However, in the full scale, it was on the “recommend” side. Anyways, there was a scene near the end where various couples were coming home from an event, and two of the spouses said to thier wives: “you were the prettiest one there.” I fully believe in that sort of subjectivity - it’s one of the many great things about love isn’t it? I joked somewhere that Dylan probably thinks I always look like that biker chick photo I have below, whereas for everyone else I only look like that through the bottom of the glass.

 

shadowOriginally uploaded by nina.

Where the hell is my jacket!!!? I ordered a vanson jacket on March 3, when the stores were empty, the snow was thick, the guys in the shops busy perusing the centerfold of superbike magazine. 10 weeks ago now. With a lead time of 6-8 weeks. 3 weeks ago they said it was DONE. Then last week they said THIS week, then today they say maybe NEXT week. I have no jacket. I also have long arms and do not have a boy’s flat chest (thank god).

Ya know, there are well received things called JIT manufacturing, supply chain management, and supply/demand forecasting. And I really don’t see any branding benefit to sub-par promising - this isn’t a scarcity equates to high demand strategy - if it is, it’s poorly executed through faulty management of expectations. My tokidoki tee said it could take up to 6 weeks due to high demand, and then delivered in 2: that’s well executed. The exalted quality isn’t going to do much for me if I never get it.

Harvard - send a business school case study team over there post-haste.

For all the old-timer fans, some stories about how/when Dylan wrote some songs:

• “I’m Not From Around Here.” The band was in Poughkeepsie, NY, touring for the first album, Won. They asked some guy on the street in a very derelict part of town for directions, and he yelled at them “I’m not from Poughkeepsie!” It became a big recurring joke for them, and also Poughkeepsie was the name of the second album.  
  
•  “City Lights.” In 1999, I was finishing 2 years of business school to get my MBA, Dylan was picking me up after a class and I gave him the wrong end time. He sat in the car for about an hour looking at the downtown skyline and wrote it. He originally envisioned it as a young guy from a small town who had moved to the city and was dating an older man or woman (I can’t remember). This is the song that supposedly is in heavy rotation at Banana Republic on their muzak. We’ve never heard it there, or heard from them, but people have told us…
  

If this is at all interesting, leave a comment and I’ll do some more. Wanna guess which song he wrote after our biggest fight ever? (no, not “screw you” that was pre-me)

Pleasureland

Originally uploaded by nina.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get an RV, convert it to run on used vegetable oil, equip it with solar and wind power and take off? In reality we would hate this, but the idea seems nice. I took this at the State fair last year, right after I bought my fancy camera.